


In the Afterimage

by Myzic



Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Ageism, Altered State of Mind, Angst, Delusions, Hallucinations, Not Beta Read, Other, Whump, Whumptober 2020, debatable - Freeform, drugged state, git gassed, hmm i mention trans!peter but its pretty brief, is juno in this?, warnings for, watch out for the trippiness in this one, we die like hyperion mayors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:08:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myzic/pseuds/Myzic
Summary: “Why don’t we split up? Might find them faster that way and we won’t slow each other down as much.” There was something wrong with that sentence, but Peter found a different question spilling from his mouth.“Slow each other down?” It sounded strange to his ears. He had always thought that they were better together. No, he knew they were better in conjunction with each other.It had never occurred to him that Juno might not share his opinion on that fact.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Whumptober 2020 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956226
Comments: 3
Kudos: 49





	In the Afterimage

**Author's Note:**

> Edit:
> 
> Trigger Warnings: drugged state, delusions, altered state of mind, ageism from Nureyev
> 
> Got a comment about this— deffos should've already been there, really sorry about that. Watch yourselves guys, and keep in mind potential triggers

Nureyev lifted himself off the ground with the railing, relishing in the satisfying burn in his arms as he hefted himself off the floor and flipped himself so his back was flush with the wall. It would be nice if he had a pole, but it was unlikely that the old folk’s home had one available, and he doubted he would find one in any of the other rooms he searched. The elderly needed railings after all, not poles in the middle of their rooms.

He glared down at the steel railing he gripped and fervently wished that it were a pole. It wasn’t like  _ he _ needed railings, after all. Nureyev planted himself back down on the ground with a hoist of his arms and backed away. 

If he pushed himself, he could probably hear the firing of lasers downstairs, or maybe rasping instructions from their resident assassin somewhere nearby. Peter wasn’t quite sure where Rita and Vespa were in the abandoned building, just that Jet and Juno were still downstairs, doing target practice with the various items left scattered by the previous residents. 

His heart didn’t settle within the seconds as it once did and it was a bitter fact that laid cold on his tongue with each deep inhale. It was probably for the better they were training. Apparently, he could use it. It was with these thoughts that Peter pulled himself up onto the railing again, forcing his arms perfectly still, and hooked a foot onto the ceiling tiles’ metal bars, shifting his weight so he swung forwards with the tilt of his body. It had been a while since he had access to ceiling tiles like these where he could practice training like this.

With his feet flexed and carefully balanced, Nureyev swung his leg forwards, hooking it onto the next pseudo-bar, and eyeing the room curiously upside down. How far could he walk like this? He felt a bit like a bat, hanging from the ceiling as he was. He could probably reach the door handle from here, and if there were ceiling panels like this all the way to the ground floor, he would be able to make it down there while appearing as if though he were standing on the ceiling the entire time. He smiled at the Juno in his imagination, both awed and freaked out by Peter hanging like a chandelier from above.

A blaring noise startled him from his position, and Peter placed his foot down quickly to land balanced, steadying himself as he made an impromptu return to the floor. He opened the door to the room he’d found to take a look at the fire alarm outside, poking his head out curiously. The small metal gong didn’t move an inch. 

Right, so Juno and Jet probably hadn’t set something on fire with an ill-placed blast again, but that didn’t solve his problem with the infernal racket ringing down the hallways and ricocheting off the walls. “What is that thing?” he yelled down the corridors, hoping that Vespa or Rita would hear him and call back, with some answers preferably. 

But no one responded.

He could ignore it, dismiss it as the faulty system of a broken, abandoned building, but that was willful ignorance at a possible problem, so he didn’t consider the idea for very long. 

Peter started to head toward the stairs, intent on regrouping with the others. No matter if it was a broken alarm or not, it would be better if they chose an abandoned facility that didn’t announce their presence to anyone who might take up fault with them briefly inhabiting it. And causing, really very minor vandalism in the grand scheme of things. 

Footsteps advancing up the stairway stopped him, and he felt his shoulders ease as he met the familiar brown of Juno’s eyes. “Hey, Nureyev!” Peter resisted the urge to shush him, then pressed a finger to his mouth with a quick grin he knew gave just a glimpse of his teeth. “Raaansom. Ransom. We thought we’d gather the others before splitting, so I’m headed to find them. Did you happen to catch Vespa and Rita!?” The alarms stopped blaring in the middle of his sentence, so Juno’s ‘did you happen’ was yelled far too loudly before his words quieted as they both paused to see if the system would go off again. It did not.

“Hello, darling, and no, I’m afraid I missed them on my way up. I came up here a fair bit before them so I —” unless he was remembering incorrectly, growing forgetful, “— must have passed them by.” He stumbled over the last few words in sudden doubt of his recollection.

“Sure,” Juno agreed easily, trustingly, “let’s go check out some of the rooms, then. I have a feeling we’ll hear them before we get there.” Peter pushed aside the momentary lapse. No, he was remembering correctly. He had come up here alone.

Despite his suspicions about Jet and Juno’s damage to the building, Peter asked the obvious question. “Do you know what set off the system, dear?”

“Not a clue,” That didn’t bode well, and Peter found himself disliking the structure they had chosen a little more, “You?”

“No, unfortunately not.”

They looked into multiple bedrooms, Peter holding open the door for Juno as they did. It had been some time since one of his identities had been the gentlemanly type to hold open doors, but he did it gleefully for Juno now. It was hard to say if it was the princely face of Mirza, or the polite Harley, or the eager-to-serve Florence that took delight in the action. Or, if it was just Peter Nureyev that liked to do this. It was hard to say what he liked most days, but it seemed like this might be another one of those things, buried and then found again by the detective. It was what he was best at, uncovering lost things. Besides simply existing that was.

“Where the hell are those two hiding?” Juno said as they entered yet another empty room, having almost reached the end of the hall on the second floor.

If they really did come up here, it seemed unlikely that they hadn’t found them yet, or at the very least heard them. “Perhaps they departed downstairs at the alarms as I had originally planned,” he suggested and then frowned. Juno looked grumpy, petulant at their search and he was radiant as always, but… 

Peter could have sworn he had a thin scar at his hairline, just a small shiny line that glinted at the top of his head. Juno turned towards him to respond, and there it was, the same long-since-healed wound he remembered touching softly as he ran his hands through Juno’s hair. He was just off his game today. It had been there this entire time. Peter thanked Buddy for requiring their training today instead of any important missions. With all the details he had been missing… Well, it didn’t bear thinking about.

“Yeah, maybe.” Juno rounded the corner of the room, entering the corridors again. “Why don’t we split up? Might find them faster that way and we won’t slow each other down as much.” There was something wrong with that sentence, but Peter found a different question spilling from his mouth.

“Slow each other down?” It sounded strange to his ears. He had always known he was a good thief, one of the better ones in the galaxy, (the best of his time if he was feeling particularly boastful), but something he’d always thought was that they were better together. No, he knew they were better in conjunction with each other.

It had never occurred to him that Juno might not share his opinion on that fact.

Juno shot him a surprised look, eyebrows raised like he was the one shocked at his question. “It’s not like we’re getting any younger here,” he placed his arm across his chest, stretching out the muscle Peter found his eyes glued to with a cracking noise, “I know I’m not.” Peter winced.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been thinking those same things, but hearing them come from Juno left him a little unsteady. It felt like he had been dropped into a binder, which he hadn’t worn since he was a teenager on Brahma, tight and uncomfortable around his sternum. It was hurt that coiled around him and squeezed. Which was ridiculous, because Peter had been thinking the exact same thing about himself earlier. 

Still, he suddenly found himself aware of the foundation thick on his face now, the tightening cream he rubbed at the corners of his eyes and on lines on his cheeks last night and before the training this morning. The breaths that didn’t come as easy as they might have ten years ago. 

Anyway, it was rich coming from Juno who was as strong as he ever was, better even with a proper meal plan and his aim improving every day. Peter fought down the urge to assuage him, and inform the detective of these things, and set it aside as a conversation for later, focusing on his more immediate concerns.

“I don’t think we should be splitting up from each other right now, Juno. Not when we still don’t know what set off that alarm.” he said concernedly, entering the hall, “It could be something dangerous for all we know.” Juno started walking down the tiled floors and Peter followed behind him.

He was smiling amusedly, the slightest hint of incredulity in the corner of his mouth, like Peter was being the unreasonable one here. “You know that we don’t need to be stuck together all the time, Nureyev. It’s better when we can act like independent individuals when the situation calls for it,” he looked at Peter expectantly, “like now.”

“There is also a time, dear detective, when it is better to stick together when faced with the unknown and potentially harmful,” Peter reasoned, starting to feel a little disgruntled despite himself. It was normal to fight in relationships. It was also normal for your partner to be completely wrong and too stubborn to see it, while you were completely in the right. “So I think I’ll be following you whether you agree or not,” he finished. So there.

“Whatever you say, Ransom.” Juno reached the corner before him, and Peter drew his legs out, far longer than Juno’s, and went to turn it behind him. He sucked in a breath, a little dizzying with his frustration, and placed a hand on the peeling drywall as he turned the corner to another corridor, expecting to see Juno a few steps ahead of him.

Instead, he was at the end of the hallway and Nureyev pushed himself off the wall, intent on making pace with him. How did he get there so quickly? Peter would have struggled to make it there that fast himself, and Juno’s legs were comparatively less in terms of length. Though not in terms of everything else, he felt gratified.

“Wait, Juno,” Peter called out, legs moving faster beneath him so he could catch up. As he walked, a blaring assaulted him, clanging obtrusively in a terrible racket, and his palms shot over his ears. He turned the corner to catch sight of the back of his shoes, the beige corner of his coat headed into yet another hallway and he chased it. “Wait for me,” he said to no one but himself, alone and huffing, a hand on his knees and a clamoring wail crawling through his eardrums.

Peter wrenched his hand from its support and straightened up again. He was losing his touch, his charm, his grace, but he wouldn’t stand there and pant like an out-of-shape jogger. He walked into the next hall, but Juno was long gone. Shit.

He’d slipped through his fingers again. “Juno?” his head felt thick and he inhaled syrup, hard to force down his lungs, hard to think straight, hard to breathe. “Juno!” Peter yelled into the hammering of the alarms that he could no longer tell apart from the ringing in his skull.

One second, he was walking and in the next, his foot slipped out beneath him and his shoulder made contact with the wall roughly as his centre of balance shifted. He pushed himself up with an arm and started trudging forward. The floor really was exceptionally ugly here, with its slate grey tiling, murky and confusing to look at. 

He wandered towards the end of the hall. Was this the way he came up? It was hard to tell. Everything in this damn building looked the same, from the rooms to the corridors, to the doors that lined the hallways in so many cells. Peter decided he hated it here, this property with its musty curtains and railings on every surface, and— and—

He simply didn’t belong, wasn’t well-suited for homes, and never planned on being in one anyway, so there was no longer a point in remaining. He had to leave.

Why hadn’t Peter memorized the floor plan before coming here? You should always know the escape route of any building you planned on occupying for longer periods of time, no exceptions. Messing up there would be unacceptable, he knew from experience, so why hadn’t he reviewed them before stepping inside the decrepit building? A lapse in logic, Peter cursed, the kind that could get you dangerously hurt or killed.

Rule one of thieving, always have a way out. Even he could only disappear for so long without a ready-made plan, some kind of preparation that made his disappearance possible in the first place.

The alarms had stopped again, which Peter found himself grateful for because it meant he was able to hear his comms, which came to life with a crackle. “Pete?” Buddy’s electronic voice twinged reedily through his comms and he flicked on his audio gratefully. That was right, Captain Aurinko, the crew. He had to go find them, even if he hadn’t so far. They were here somewhere, behind the doors, he just had to keep checking. And respond, that too. “Are you there, Peter?”

“Yes, Captain,” he saluted, and kept walking, sneering down at his feet as he did. They didn’t go straight the way he wanted them to, not moving far enough and crossing over each other slightly. Just like the rest of his sagging, old body, which could no longer carry him the way it used to. Peter couldn’t be the twenty-something he used to be a decade ago, couldn’t even be the same man he was a year ago, almost two now, excited for the stars, for Juno. What future did he have to have been excited for back then when he couldn’t even get Juno to stay? And still couldn’t it would seem.

“The others have returned to the Carte Blanche, are you on your way out of the building?” Right, the Captain. The Carte Blanche, he had to go back. Peter realized he’d been standing in the same spot and began to move again.

“On my way. I should be there in a flash, Captain,” he returned, looking straight down at his feet so he didn’t forget to walk again.

“We’re waiting for you, darling, so really any minute now—” her words were drowned out by a rushing sound, great bursts of energy and power. Like engines firing up.

He turned his audio down a little while he waited for the sound to fade before responding, “Captain Aurinko?” No answer, “Buddy?” Peter switched calls and rang up Juno. It rang through to a couple of negative little beeps that signified a lack of pickup. 

Peter stared blankly at his feet and determinedly not through the windows of rooms whose doors he had opened looking for his crewmates. Didn’t turn to see the Carte Blanche leaving and did not think of who might be on that ship without him. He’d seen enough retreating backs for a lifetime.

At some point, he found himself at the top of the stairs, dizzy. Peter looked down the long row of steps and goddamn railings on both sides and resisted the urge to simply tumble down them until he found himself at the bottom. 

There was a person running up the stairs, feet pounding the steps hurriedly. “Ransom! Ransom, the hell are you?” That didn’t make sense. The Carte Blanche had left, hadn’t it? And even if Juno  _ was _ better off without him, there’s no way the Captain would have left behind— “Goddammit, Ransom, what’re you doing just standing there?” Vespa’s face was a comforting sight if only because the glare she made when she looked at him was very distinctive and familiar as it was the expression she made at him roughly ninety-percent of the time.

“Vespa,” he said, staring, “but the Captain said, the comms—”

“Look, I don’t know what you’ve been seeing, or hearing or whatever, but you’re not wearing comms,” She gestured to her own ear which was bare of the device, “and we gotta get the hell out of here.” He splayed his hand flat over the right side of his head and found only the bumpy mass of flesh that composed his own ear. No comms. That was right, they hadn’t brought them because they were only training today, and the Carte Blanche was parked nearby, so there hadn’t been the need.

Vespa gestured at him in a ‘start walking’ way and Peter started to descend the stairs, only to find himself wobbling humiliatingly on the first step. He didn’t think he’d been less graceful since he was fifteen, just out of puberty with an unexpected few feet to show for it and lanky limbs that fumbled frustratingly during the simplest of grifts.

The assassin watched him, and for a moment, it looked like she was going to let him topple down them, but then there was a hand under his arm, both pulling him along and forcing him to remain upright as he just managed to avoid falling. 

“You said something about seeing things?” His tongue felt thick in his mouth, and relief came before the clarity. If Vespa was here, the Carte Blanche would still be there, and so would Juno, even if he would likely still be a bit annoyed at how, admittedly, clingy Peter had been earlier. He was still here, and that made it worth it. “Did you hear the alarms?”

“Alarms? There  _ weren’t _ any— You were hearing things,” he felt a little unbalanced, more than he already did, nearly tripping over his feet and a tense arm supporting him. Peter relied on his senses to keep him alive. When he had nothing, no menagerie of items, no blaster, no knives, he had his mind. Nureyev had himself, and usually, that was all he ever needed. If he didn’t have that, then what did he have?

“Oh,” he murmured, “Then, what happened?”

Don’t really know. Steel was blathering about some of the superstitious crap the townsfolk say about this area,” She grunted back at him, the only sign of her strain at supporting him evident in her voice, “Personally, I thought the whole ‘haunted’ stuff was crap, but well, he had a couple of theories that don’t sound too  _ un _ convincing I guess.” 

Peter recalled roughly nothing of the ‘haunted crap’ Vespa was speaking about, but then he had been a little wrapped up during the landing. If Buddy really wanted to hold his attention and hone her speaking skills, she should be making her speeches more interesting than the scar on Juno’s hairline, and the small mole at the left corner of his nose, and— well, good luck to her with that. 

But he also hadn’t heard any of these theories that she was talking about when he was actually with Juno, so, “I saw Juno, though. He was with me,” and Peter wrested his arm from her grip now that they were at the bottom of the stairs and used his new freedom of mobility to point a manicured finger at her, “and we were looking for you and Rita.”

“What?” she said, “No, me and the hacker were on the bottom floor the whole time, and you couldn’t have been with Steel because he’s been with me. I’m sure you were on the top floor by yourself.” That couldn’t be right. Vespa must’ve seen the disbelief apparent on his face because she grabbed back the arm she’d been gripping and unceremoniously dragged him outside.

“See,” Outside, the sun shone brightly above him, and Peter squinted for a second before realizing Vespa was pointing at Juno, who laid boneless alongside Jet against the concrete side of the building, “they were getting real twitchy when they were inside. But you know what? I bet you’re starting to feel a little better aren’t you, Ransom, with all this fresh air.” Nureyev did in fact feel less dizzy, and he went to check Juno’s vitals, ignoring an incredulous look from Vespa.

Was it insulting to perform medical procedures in front of the crew’s medic? Perhaps. Did he particularly care at the moment, with Juno lying unconscious in front of him as he had far too often. It was hard to say at the moment, but he was going to have to go with a ‘no.’

Juno’s airways seemed clear with his visible breaths and his pulse wasn’t so strong or weak as to be concerning, so Peter withdrew his hands and brushed aside a few hairs that were ruffled out of place.

“Yeah, it’s something in the air we thought,” She smiled victoriously at him, and he felt too grateful for the lack of sugary slow thoughts to be truly disgruntled, “or uh, he thought. Took it pretty bad, the both of them. Steel kept insisting he go find you but wasn’t in any kind of condition and the gas knocked him out pretty fast after that.” Vespa said the word ‘gas’ strangely, but Peter paid it no mind as he gathered Juno in his arms.

It was surprisingly easier than he thought it was. “Thank you for stopping him,” he told Vespa, oddly grateful she’d had a stronger sense of survival for the detective than he did for himself. She looked taken aback by his thanks, and Nureyev felt the words come a little awkward off his tongue as he spoke a phrase he never thought he’d say aloud, and continued, “though I do wish you’d come to collect me sooner than you did.” 

“I had to prioritize the unconscious sacks, and Siquliak’s no pack of redistributed air here,” Vespa shook her arms at him from where they were wrapped under Jet’s armpits as his legs dragged on the ground. She grabbed Jet and they began to trek slowly back to the Carte Blanche with their haul.

It was an odd day for him to be feeling so indebted to the assassin, but appreciation rushed through him anyway as she didn’t mention him automatically electing himself to be the one to carry Juno.

“And where’s—”

“Sent the hacker back to the ship while she could still walk. Got to her pretty quick, probably because it circulated faster through her body,” she mused as they painstakingly covered the distance. Peter privately delighted at how his arms carried Juno’s weight with far less effort than he would’ve thought. “Probably took a little longer for you ‘cause you weren’t as close to the source,” she stomped her foot on the ground as she dragged Jet. 

Peter looked at the ground, that they were still walking on and felt a pang of panic in his chest. “But we’re still in contact with the emissions, are we not?” She was grinning oddly, even as a fine layer of sweat sheened on her brow while she pulled the much larger man.

“Building trapped all of it inside, whereas outdoor it just dissipates, thief.” There was something in the curve of her back, her movements that held a tinge of exhaustion but also looked a little excited— no, not that. It was more proud, like a businessperson that walked out of a big company deal knowing they were up for a promotion in the future. It was also incredibly annoying as they strained to carry the bodies of their crewmates to the Carte Blanche, which shone gloriously closer with every footstep. 

“And why are you in such a good mood,” he snapped at her, and almost instantly regretted the loss of his composure. That was unneeded. Vespa had pretty much single-handedly saved them all, and even if it was grating now, her badly hidden delight wasn’t undeserved, considering.

She responded with a barking laugh, and he found himself wrong-footed, though luckily not in the same disoriented way he’d been earlier. “I just find it funny,” Vespa looked victorious, sharp-eyed, “that when everyone here saw the things I do, experienced things that only I have on this crew, I came out the other side, none the worse, but they can’t say the same.”

That was— honestly, a little callous when she put it like that, but mostly it was astonishing. 

There must have been some kind of look on his face as he glanced over, and by god, he hoped it wasn’t awe, but her posture changed to a more irritable one with her rasping tone, “Not that it’s any of your business, Ransom.” Peter could feel his hackles rise at the argumentative statement, but swallowed a response and looked down at the detective’s face to distract himself instead.

What a distraction it was. Juno looked so peaceful, head resting against Nureyev’s collar bone, and he wished that it were an expression of sleep rather than unconsciousness. He mustered a little more strength and gripped him harder, holding the bend of his knees closer to his chest, and the warm small of his back tighter. He wished he could feel the beat of his heart, steadying as it was in the night against his own in their beds, but made do with the slight rise and fall of the dear detective’s chest against his own. 

Peter loved Juno, loved holding him, carrying him, but he could only do it for so long, and never had he needed to do it for such a distance before.

“We’re headed to the med bay,” Vespa shot at him as they ascended the metal ramp into the belly of the ship, and Peter savoured the sound of his steps, familiar against the metal floor in a way he never had before. “Rita and Bud should be there already, so try not to hit the floor before then.”

“I had already assumed that was our destination,” Peter said mildly, lifting his shoulders higher to persuade his arms not to give out when the package they carried was so precious.

Rita was already in the med bay, asleep from how she had her rolled back and an oxygen mask on. Buddy sat over her and helped Vespa set Jet against another wall, before embracing her after Vespa panted in place for a moment.

Peter himself fared a bit better and placed Juno down on a bed with the utmost delicacy he could muster. Which was little more than simply dropping him onto the mattress as his arms twinged and cramped almost painfully. He flopped down onto the small bed next to him, far too small for the both of them, and tuned out the loving words of the Captain and her assassin.

He didn’t raise his voice to interrupt their reunion. They were probably all due a sleepover in the med bay overnight, and Peter didn’t plan on going anywhere anyway, so he wrapped his arms around the detective and rested his head on his chest. The exhaustion swept over him and he dropped into sleep, listening to the sound of Juno’s heartbeat, steady against his ear.

**Author's Note:**

> So, Vespa literally knocked Juno unconscious ‘cause he was freaking and having a Bad Time with the gas and kept insisting he go find Nureyev.
> 
> I have officially completed over half of whumptober!! I cannot believe I’ve consistently stayed on track. Eight stories, guys. That’s so much (it’s so. much.), and I haven’t missed a day! Yet.
> 
> Anyway, come find me @themagicmistress on Tumblr!


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